April trial scheduled for man facing federal gun charge after September shooting, crash

An April trial has been scheduled for a man facing a federal gun charge after a shooting and crash in north Oak Ridge in September.

Larry Dewayne Williams was indicted by a federal grand jury in October on one count of being a convicted felon who possessed a gun and ammunition. Authorities said police found a pistol and ammunition manufactured outside Tennessee in his house and car.

The trial had initially been scheduled to start Tuesday, January 12, in U.S. District Court in Knoxville. But after reviewing the case, U.S. District Court Judge Pamela Reeves agreed late last year that Williams needed additional time to prepare his case, and government prosecutors didn’t object, according to court records. The new trial date is April 5.

The plea agreement deadline is March 29.

Williams allegedly fled from Oak Ridge police in a silver Infiniti after a September 21 shooting on Wakefield Road. After he allegedly ran from the car following a three-vehicle crash at North Illinois Avenue and West Outer Drive, Oak Ridge Police Department Officer James Elkins found an AR-15 type firearm on the passenger floorboard of Williams’ Infiniti and a semi-automatic pistol lying inside, authorities said.

During the hunt for Williams, an Anderson County Sheriff’s Department K-9 tracked Williams to a nearby home at 612 West Outer Drive, a house that Williams shares with Chelsea Lively. Inside that house, police found hand gun cases and gun magazines in plain view, according to an affidavit that accompanied a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court on October 2.

They also found about two ounces of suspected heroin and roughly 7.72 ounces of suspected marijuana.

The federal affidavit said Williams has three prior felony convictions in Anderson County. All three were for possessing cocaine with the intent to sell it, authorities said.

 

A loaded Armscor .45-caliber pistol found in Williams’ car and all of the ammunition possessed by Williams, including a single round of 9mm ammunition found in the Infiniti, were manufactured outside Tennessee, affecting interstate commerce, the affidavit said.

“Both the firearms and ammunition recovered in this case also meet their respective definitions under the federal law,” said the affidavit, which was filed by Special Agent Rebecca Bobich of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

Search warrants were obtained for the home and Williams’ vehicle, authorities said.

When they searched the car, Bobich said, police found two firearms: a loaded Mohawk Armory .223 caliber pistol and a loaded Armscor .45 caliber pistol. They also found a single round of 9mm ammunition, according to the affidavit.

When they searched the home, the affidavit said, police found the suspected heroin and marijuana and plastic baggies, a Triton digital scale, .45 caliber ammunition, .223 caliber ammunition, and gun cases and gun magazines.

Lively, who is also facing charges, was located and interviewed on Thursday, September 24. She said Williams had shown up at the house at the bottom of the steps after the Monday, September 21, crash.

Lively told authorities that she had never bought guns and did not know how Williams got his weapons, Bobich said.

Williams was arrested about a month after the shooting and crash, on Sunday, October 18, at Club Dejavu in South Knoxville, according to the Knox County Sheriff’s Office.

It’s not clear what specific charges Williams might face, if any, in Oak Ridge. Williams was also wanted by Anderson County for a violation of probation or parole, the KCSO said at the time of his arrest in South Knoxville.

Lively has been charged with possessing Schedule I (heroin) and Schedule VI (marijuana) drugs for sale. In September, authorities said further charges against her are expected.

Before he was arrested in October, Oak Ridge police had issued a wanted bulletin for Williams, and they said he had been identified as a person of interest in the September 21 shooting when he fled from the ORPD shortly afterward and allegedly caused the three-car crash at the intersection of North Illinois Avenue and West Outer Drive.

 

It’s still not clear who did the shooting on Monday night, September 21, whether it was a drive-by, as it has sometimes been described, or whether there was more than one person involved. But there appeared to be a significant number of rounds fired. At the scene that night, Oak Ridge Police Department Detective Kevin Craig documented 21 casings.

There were no injuries during the shooting, but one Wakefield Road family that said it wasn’t involved said two bullets penetrated a wall of their home and another one lodged in the siding.

More information will be added as it becomes available.

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